understanding media presentation

7/31/2019 Understanding Media Presentation

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Understanding Media

Key quotations from McLuhan



The Medium is the Message

• The medium is the message : “This is

merely to say that the personal and social

consequences of any medium – that is, of

any extension of ourselves – result from

the new scale that is introduced into our

affairs by each extension of ourselves, or

by any new technology” (p. 7).




• “The electric light is pure information. It is

a medium without a message unless it is

used to spell out some verbal ad or name.

This fact, characteristic of all media,

means that the „content‟ of any medium is

always another medium. The content of

writing is speech, just as the written wordis the content of print, and print is the

content of the telegraph” (p. 8).




• For example : “Whether the [electric] lightis being used for brain surgery or nightbaseball is a matter of indifference.

[T]hese activities are the „content‟ of theelectric light since they could not existwithout the electric light. This underlinesthe point that „the medium is the message‟

because it is the medium that shapes andcontrols the scale and form of humanassociation and action” (p. 9).




• “For it is not till the electric light is used to

spell out some brand name that it is

noticed as a medium” (p. 9).




• Mechanization : “And the paradox of mechanization is that although it is itself the cause of maximal growth and change,

the principle of mechanization excludesthe very possibility of growth or theunderstanding of change. For mechanization is achieved by

fragmentation of any process and byputting the fragmented parts in a series”(p. 11).




• “Mechanization was never so vividlyfragmented or sequential as in the birth of movies, the moment that translated us

beyond mechanism into the world of growth and organic interrelation. Themovie, by sheer speeding up themechanical, carried us from the world of

sequence and connections into the worldof creative configuration and structure” (p.12).




• Content : “the content of any medium is

always another medium. The content of

writing is speech, just as the written word

is the content of print, and print is thecontent of the telegraph” (p. 8).




• “The content of a movie is a novel or a

play or an opera. The effect of the movie

form is not related to its program content”

(p. 18).




• “What we are considering here, however,

are the psychic and social consequences

of the designs or patterns as they amplify

or accelerate existing processes. For the„message‟ of any medium or technology is

the change of scale or pace or pattern that

it introduces into human affairs” (p. 8).




• Effects of Technology : “The effects of

technology do not occur at the level of

opinions or concepts, but alter sense

ratios or patterns of perception steadilyand without any resistance” (p. 18).




• “Subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisonswithout walls for their human users. As A.

J. Liebling remarked in his book The Press , a man is not free if he cannot seewhere he is going, even if he has a gun tohelp him get there. For each of the media

is also a powerful weapon with which toclobber other media and other groups” (p.20).




• “We become what we behold” (p. 19).



Media Hot and Cold

• Hot vs. Cool media : “There is a basic

principle that distinguishes a hot medium

like radio from a cool one like the

telephone, or a hot medium like the moviefrom a cool one like TV. A hot medium is

one that extends one single sense in „high

definition.‟ High definition is the state of being well filled with data” (p. 22).



Media Hot and Cold

• “Hot media are, therefore, low in

participation, and cool media are high in

participation or completion by the

audience” (p. 23).



Media Hot and Cold

• De-tribalization : “A tribal and feudal

hierarchy of traditional kind collapses

quickly when it meets any hot medium of

the mechanical, uniform, and repetitivekind. The medium of money or wheel or

writing, or any other form of specialist

speed-up of exchange and information,will serve to fragment a tribal structure” (p.

24).



Media Hot and Cold

• Re-tribalization : “Similarly, a very much

greater speed-up, such as occurs with

electricity, may serve to restore a tribal

pattern of intense involvement such astook place with the introduction of radio in

Europe, and is now tending to happen as

a result of TV in America” (p. 24).



Media Hot and Cold

• “Specialist technologies detribalize. The

nonspecialist electric technology

retribalizes” (p. 24).



Media Hot and Cold

• Insight : “In fact, it is the technique of

insight, and as such is necessary for

media study, since no medium has its

meaning or existence alone, but only inconstant interplay with other media” (p.

26). [See also slide #8.]



Media Hot and Cold

• Entropy :

– “The effect of electric technology had at first

been anxiety. Now it appears to create

boredom” (p. 26).

– “The price of eternal vigilance is indifference”

(p. 30).



Media Hot and Cold

• “The hot radio medium used in a cool or nonliterate cultures has a violent effect,quite unlike its effect, say in England or

America, where radio is felt asentertainment. A cool or low literacyculture cannot accept hot media likemovies or radio as entertainment. They

are, at least, as radically upsetting for them as the cool TV medium has provedto be for our high literacy world” (p. 31).



Media Hot and Cold

Movie Vs. Television



Media Hot and Cold

Paper Vs. Stone



Media Hot and Cold

The Waltz Vs. The Twist



Media Hot and Cold

Nylon Vs. Fishnet Stockings



Media Hot and Cold

Radio Vs. Telephone



Media Hot and Cold

Photograph Vs. Cartoon



Media Hot and Cold

Eyeglasses Vs. Sunglasses

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